


Burning Bright

by phantomreviewer



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-06
Updated: 2010-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-13 02:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomreviewer/pseuds/phantomreviewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chandler goes into a nightclub. For pleasure. It doesn't go well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Bright

**Author's Note:**

> This ia an un-beta'd edit, I'll replace witht he editted version when it's completed.

Chandler couldn't pinpoint the moment that he'd decided to step over the threshold. Technically speaking he knew that the realisation of what his evening activities were going to commence of had been established when he's frowned a little too deeply at Kent's declaration that he was going to the pub with some mates. The thoughts had tumbled through his head like a performing troop, until he realised that he couldn't place the last time that he'd been out socially, out side of work.

He was struggling to think of the last time he'd been out with the team socially at all. As in, they'd certainly had meetings in pubs, or discussed cases over lunch but the last time that they'd taken the time to spend with each other as a social engagement and nothing else, was. Chandler had the halting feeling that it had been during the Ripper case, as Miles' home. It was something that should be rectified, but he couldn't bring the ailing team together, what was left of it, not if he couldn't hold claim to having socialised himself.

Whilst that was the reason that led him to the doorway of the "Tyger". But it didn't explain why he stepped into the cesspit of human indecency. At any one nightclub in London, the average number of crimes committed in a week varied from petty theft, to rohypnol and harassment to murder. There was always a case involving the situation that Chandler had blindly walked into. His head was pounding, and the techo-beat echoed around his skull. What he couldn't find the answer to however, was way he kept on walking.

The room was full, crowded full of bodies without faces, and faces without names. Chandler hated it, he hated the noise that reverberated through him like a gun shot. Rhythmic, pounding necessity. It was what he remembered sex to feel like. If he was hard pressed to recall the last time he'd been out socialising, the last time he'd had such an intimate experience with something was even further, when he'd just joined the force? University? It wasn't that he didn't understand the physical necessity, but it was so messy, so close. Not an experience that was appealing to the senses. Except here, the appeal could be understandable. Beneath the sordid, despicable nature of the environment was something that radiated lust. Or he expected it to be lust, he couldn't recall it's sensation.

Chandler scowled and walked further into the throng. Whilst the technicalities of visiting such an establishment was beyond his expertise, the expected practise wasn't hard to follow through. Pace through the crowd of dancing, rutting inconsiderate people- who would ruffle at his hair, and drag at his shirt sleeves, their hands, never leaving his body, as if they wanted to drag him into the Bacchic ritual he had uncovered. Order a drink- _and straws please, as many as you have, cocktail sticks, anything,_ and then proceed to drink, dance and be merry.

His eyes skimmed the club, each beat of the club making him long the for quite of a glass of gin, or scotch, something soothing, something quietening. Something that gave the heady comfort of home, or the thrill of the chase. Instead, he plucked the umbrella out of whatever concoction he'd been given and downed in. It made his head pound further. And he clenched his eyes, one hand gripping the nearest coaster. When his eyes were wrenched open by a hand coming down on his shoulder, he gave an all body flinch, and cast his eyes to the arrangement he'd made on the bar. Seconds away from removing his watch to complete the geometric pattern of beer mats and straws, he ripped the paper fan from the umbrella and laid both handle and canopy down, to create order out of chaos.

It was brushed aside by a terse barman, muttering about artistic talent and what bloody good it ever did anyone. He turned sharply and stared out into the sea of human decadence. Whilst he'd been hard pressed to find explanation as to his entrance, his persistence to see this untimely trial out to the end was foolhardy It was ridiculous in his position to take unqualified risks. And yet his exit was blocked by both the rabble of people content in this commotion and the new wave that had flooded the stairwell like harpies.

The drowning motion, of noise and people and the all mighty thrust and parry of human life, sucked Chandler into its heart. Whilst his attempts to strive towards freedom had lead him further into the touching, grasping hold of those to whom any body was better than none at all. The sanctity of the exit and the open sky was being held away from him. There was nothing recognisable about the feelings that were prickling at his face, his hands, his being.

Then, something was being directed to him through the daze of people, closed eyes and clenched fists. A body, that he knew, a face with a name the came from his lips like a supplication. Hands bracketing his shoulder, something to focus on that wasn't the pounding of the music or the rutting of the clientele. Words like opera. _Is there a job sir? I'm sorry, my phone was switched off, won't happen again sir_ \- and then something, incoherent emerged from Chandler's lips mmnermher and he fell faint.


End file.
